


sick day

by starlightment



Series: Gift Fics [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cute, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, Gay Keith (Voltron), Husbands, M/M, Married Life, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post S8, Post-Canon, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, but so so in love, keith is helpless, lance catches a cold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 12:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17980961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightment/pseuds/starlightment
Summary: Lance catches a cold, and Keith does his absolute best.





	sick day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anonymous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous/gifts).



> Written for my SKA!anon on tumblr <3

**. . .**

 

It all starts with a sniffle, and a harmless little tickle in the back of his throat.  

 _Allergies_ , Keith rationalizes, plain and simple.  

 _The first known case of the intergalactic plague_ , Lance corrects with a pout.

Somehow, Keith resists the urge to lean across the dinner table, and kiss it off his husband’s perfectly plump lips. “You’re fine,” he tells him — not for the first  _or_  last time of the day, he’s certain.

“Oh, yeah?” challenges Lance. He spears a piece of broccoli with his fork, and points it right at Keith’s annoyingly unperturbed expression. “How do  _you_  know?”

“Because I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”

At that, Lance’s face twitches a bit, like he can’t decide if he wants to smile or continue being cranky and tired and childish for the rest of the evening. He opts for the latter as he wrinkles up his brow, and says, “You can’t  _stab_  the space germs away, knife boy.”

“You can’t  _pout_  them away either, love,” Keith says fondly, and Lance promptly —  _crankily, tiredly, childishly_ — tucks his bottom lip between his teeth. “Go to bed. I’ve got the dishes.”

“I can help!”

“I thought you were dying from the intergalactic plague.”

Lance garbles out a noise of protest, caught halfway between a growl and some sort of distressed whale call.

“Bed,” Keith orders again, standing from the table, and collecting their plates. Lance’s is only partially picked at. No appetite. Keith makes a note.

And when Lance doesn’t budge from his chair, Keith makes even more notes about the downward slope of his sagging shoulders, and the way he stares rather miserably into his lap, eyes gone distant, lifeless, surprisingly glossy. A fading star, lost in the galaxy, burning out like a flickering flame.

So Keith swoops down to kiss the crown of his head, nose steeped in sweet-smelling chestnut curls. “I’ll be there when I’m done,” he says softly. “Promise.”

Lance can’t help but sigh at the pleasant tingle that comes with Keith’s breath warming his entire skull, and then wobbles his way to the bedroom.

Another sigh. A loud sneeze. Then the click of the door as it closes.

Keith gets started on those dishes.    

 

* * *

 

There’s a distinctly Lance-shaped mound of sheets piled right in the middle of their bed when Keith enters the room, and a thrum of affection ripples so mightily through his entire body that he has to lean against the doorframe, just long enough to hush the singing pitter-patter of his heart. It’s dead quiet, save for the ragged sound of stuffy-nosed breathing, and so Keith moves stealthily across the floor, barely even rustling the bedsheets as he slips into bed.  

But Lance begins to stir the very moment he senses that he’s encased in Keith’s arms, wiggling and squirming until his back is pressed up against the sturdiness of his husband’s chest where he fits so nicely.  

“There you are,” he mumbles, all groggy and raspy from fatigue — or maybe just a sore throat.

Keith hums quietly in reply, letting it rumble around in the pit of his lungs. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“Can’t,” whispers Lance, and it’s then that Keith’s slow-roaming fingertips happen to catch the bottom of Lance’s pajama shirt, startled by the slightest brush of clammy, over-heated skin that peeks below the hem.

“Whoa, you —” His hand, now alert and moving with purpose, slides up to Lance’s chest, palm to heart. It beats out of rhythm. “—Lance, you’re  _really_  hot.”

“Mm, tell me something I  _don’t_  know, babe.”

“Lance, I’m serious, you’re — hey, look at me for a second.”  

With a shallow grunt and a bit of painstaking effort, Lance twists himself around, and easily finds Keith’s gaze, nestled there in the darkness. It clings to him like mesh, searching, as if all the answers are right there, smattered across his face like a constellation of freckles. Lance’s lids droop low over the blues of his eyes, and the marks on his cheeks are dull and lightless, lacking their usual otherworldly luster.

“How do you feel?” asks Keith.

“Sleepy.”

“Does anything — hurt?”

Lance shakes his head. It feels heavy and weightless all at once.  

And that’s when Keith starts cursing himself,  _vehemently_ , for all the things he doesn’t know. All the quick cures and home remedies he never received from the doting parents he never had. All the know-how and expertise that would probably make him feel a bit less helpless, and Lance a bit more comfortable. But it feels something like eons since the last time _a cold_  has been the biggest of their concerns. After all, the universe has been defended — and there aren’t any healing pods or powerful alien magic at their disposal anymore.

“Okay,” breathes Keith, pressing his forehead against Lance’s, and feeling that feverish sting against his own skin. “Okay, okay, okay.”

“What’s the diagnosis?” Lance wheezes.

“You’re sick.”

“Space plague?”

“No, it’s not —” He pushes out a sigh. God, he can’t even  _bicker_  right now. That’s how he knows he’s truly out of his element. “—Just stay here. I’ll bring you some water.”

Lance nods muzzily. “Mmkay.”

“And medicine, too, I guess.”

“ _Mmhm_.”

Keith leans away, allowing just enough distance to notice that Lance’s eyes have slipped shut, lashes fanning against his colorless cheeks. He also notices the tight pinch still tugging at the center of his brow, even as he sleeps, and the labored undulations of his chest with every noisy breath that trickles past his lips. It all goes straight to Keith’s gut, sharp and swift like a blade.

No, they’re  _definitely_  not in space anymore.

But Keith is holding his entire universe right here in his arms, and he’s going to do everything he can to protect it.        

 

* * *

  

Everything is warm and bleary when Lance wakes up at —  _sometime_  the following morning. Who knows. Time feels even more meaningless now than it did in space. The bedsheets are tangled disastrously around his limbs, and the sun is too damn bright, even as it just barely seeps through the narrow cracks of the window blinds.

On the other side of the door, Keith is pacing around as he talks on the phone with Shiro. Lance can tell from the low, clipped tone of his muffled words, and the restless, worried fall of his footsteps.

Lance doesn’t want him to worry.

He squeezes his eyes shut, and wills his head to stop throbbing, his throat to stop burning, his body to stop aching.

It doesn’t work.

Groaning, he rolls himself over, and drifts back to sleep.

 

* * *

  

When Lance wakes again, he finds the hazy image of Keith sitting on the edge of the mattress, and he’s cradling a bowl full of something that looks like homemade soup.

_Kind of._

“I think my head is exploding,” Lance grumbles unintelligibly into his pillow.

Miraculously, Keith still understands him. “It’s not.”  

“You’re not a doctor.”

“Lance,” says Keith, patting his leg. “You need to sit up and eat something.”

He continues grumbling as he pulls himself up, and rubs his eyes with the back of his hands. His lips are all chapped, and his nose is all red, and there’s a particularly unruly tuft of hair on the top of his head that’s sticking up in the wrong direction. Keith’s grin goes endearingly crooked as he reaches out to smooth it down. It just pops back up again.

“Whazzat?” Lance looks down at the bowl.

“Um, soup,” and the way Keith mutters it makes Lance’s heart ache just a little. “I made soup.”

“You made — really?”

“Just try it,” Keith huffs, and lifts a heaping spoonful into the air.

Lance recoils like a turtle ducking into its shell.

“Lance,  _c’mon_.”

“This is embarrassing,” he complains with a wet-sounding sniff. “I can feed myself —”

And then, the spoon is shoved past Lance’s fumbling lips without another protest. Flavor bursts along his tongue, making his nose scrunch and his eyes water.

“Is it… okay?” Keith wonders hesitantly.

With great struggle, Lance forces himself to swallow.

“Keith. Honey. I love you  _so_  much,” he begins slowly, solemnly, “but I never want to eat that again.”

Keith peers down at his lumpy concoction, which appears to have a similar consistency to food goo now that he’s  _really_  looking at it, and says, just as solemn, “That’s fair.”  

 

* * *

 

Attempt number two comes with a two-hour instructional video chat with Hunk, a lot of colorful swearing on Keith’s part, and a lot of saint-like patience on Hunk’s. But the end result is something that undeniably resembles chicken noodle soup.  

In appearance  _and_  taste, apparently, because Lance, still delirious and sleep-rumpled, licks his lips after the first spoonful, and the curved marks beneath his eyes glow to life with three happy little pulses of light.

And it’s probably the most adorable thing Keith has seen in his entire life.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the day carries on quite unremarkably.

Keith tidies up the kitchen, clearing away the epic aftermath of the soup debacle.

He checks on Lance.

He calls Acxa to let her know that arrangements will have to be made while he’s away from work.  

He checks on Lance again.

He takes a nap on the couch, and wakes up a few hours later to the sound of vexing silence, with nothing but the awful realization that he misses Lance’s twinkling laugh, and the little songs he hums under his breath while he mills about the house, and all his loudness, ridiculousness, and utter  _Lance-ness._

So Keith makes his way to the bedroom again.  

And, this time, he finds Lance sitting cross-legged on the mattress, a blanket draped around his shoulders like a long, fluffy cape. He glances up when the door creaks open, eyes bright and far less miserable-looking than they had been this morning.

“Hey,” says Keith. “You okay? Need something?”

Lance says nothing, but summons his husband forward with two shameless grabby-hands.

Keith chuckles as he sits on the bed, letting Lance melt right into him until his head drops into his lap. He takes the opportunity to thread his fingers through Lance’s hair, which is still in tragic disarray after a whole day spent smooshed against a nest of pillows, but it’s the same softness, the same touchable texture that he adores to sink his hands into.  

“Love you,” mumbles Lance.

“Love you, too.”

“And I love that you don’t know how to make soup.”

Keith allows a mildly disgruntled  _hmph_  in response.

But then Lance is grinning up at him, and saying, “You’re still my favorite husband, though.”

“Told you,” Keith murmurs, bending over to kiss the tip of Lance’s flushed nose. The marks flicker blue on either side of his face. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”


End file.
